by Paul Hughes
REPORT.
SUSPECTED LIFEBOAT SURVIVAL.
A SUPPOSITION((?))
PROBABLE SURFACE IMPACT, CREW SURVIVAL.
THEY WILL FALL WITH THE REST.
THEY WILL. PROGRESS((?))
BELT DEPLETION NINETY PERCENT.
DEPARTURE SOON. PLANET HARVEST FOLLOWS((?))
PLANET HARVEST FOLLOWS. UPLOAD FOLLOWS.
joy in the black of hell
AUGMENTATION OF PURPOSE PATTERNS FOLLOWS. SOON.
PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.
COMPLETION IS THE PURPOSE.
knowledge of ancient honor. pleasure
QUERY. ONE BELT REMNANT, ONE BACKWARD((?))
insight
REMAIN THEN. COMPLETE HARVEST. WE DEPART.
GO THEN. WE WILL JOIN IN THE PURPOSE SOON.
PURPOSE BE.
the darkness within the void parts
one remains. one fades into distant memory
Panic.
Water flooded the lifeboat.
They blew the hatch, and everywhere there was water.
Reynald activated the auto-delete sequence as he gasped his last breath of air before climbing out of the lifeboat. The water was stifling, frigid. They swam up into the moonlight.
In the night air, eight men released their burning lungs and inhaled for seemingly the first time. Most of the young men had never before tasted real air. They were born anew in a world of black and cold.
Lights to one side: the darkened shoreline.
They swam.
Magdalene:
She slept but did not sleep. She felt the ocean around her, the suffocating press of the depths. When had she last felt water, really truly felt water? Memories of too-cold-to-actually-be-enjoyable dips in the North Channel.
So tired.
Thoughts. Flashes in the black ocean of her mind.
She snapped out of her daze. Kilbourne—the Fleet must be alerted, at least those remnants that hadn’t been swayed. Simon must be warned of the plan.
Under her careful and gentle watch, she initiated a quantum singularity, just large enough to slip a communications beacon into the void.
(compressed beam communication relay initiated. tight beam when hole search initiated.)
A pause. A glimmer of hope.
(relay reports tight beam when hole site identification positive. whenstream beacon placed.)
A frown.
She saw, she felt them. So many screams, so many souls.
(when hole collapse initiated. tight beam communiqué to upwhen, as follows:)
A particle of matter is shifted into non-existence. It bears a message into the past, present, future.
(judas clearance gethsemane magdalene emergency relay: enemy forces on alpha-direct transit. request assistance from any available judas. purpose nears completion.
(the purpose must be prevented. from all whens, converge.)
Exhausted, Magdalene slept.
black
A BEACON. A SIGNAL. PURSUIT FOLLOWS.
A BEACON((?)) THE JUDAS LIVES.
ACTION((?))
A RUSE; A TRAP.
a smile in hell
THEY BELIEVE THE PURPOSE IS COMPLETED.
PURPOSE PATTERN SACRIFICE, AUGMENTATION.
initiative. flicker of a higher purpose
INITIATE HARVEST UPLOAD, JUDAS SEARCH.
THIS MAGDALENE WILL SERVE US... THE CONTAGION OF HER COMRADES WILL COME TO HER AID. WHEN THEY DO—
THEY WILL BECOME ONE WITH THE PURPOSE.
the darkness parts.
Harkness, Michigan.
Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Population 1,250. Major industry: commercial fishing.
Harkness was a quiet town. Little crime. The people were honest and God-fearing. The most exciting event in Harkness was the Saturday night bingo and dance at the American Legion downtown.
Harkness was a peaceful town, one of those backward holdovers from an era and a way of life that died long before the wars of the third millennium. It was indeed a happy town.
1:45 A.M.
Buddy McClure was the town drunk of Harkness, and as always, Buddy was piss-drunk and loving it. He left the dance at about midnight and went to Smitty’s Bar for a couple of cold ones. A couple of cold ones turned into twelve beers and a dangerously nondescript mixed drink someone had left on the bar. Buddy was on top of the world and riding it like the bucking bronco he had sometimes hoped it would be in those naïve and energetic days before he discovered the companionship of booze and smokes and dangerous women. Well, truthfully there had been a lot more booze than smokes, and statistically speaking an amazing dearth of dangerous women in Buddy’s life, with the notable exception of that cheating bitch he had knocked up in high school and knocked around so much during the course of their three-month marriage that she left him for Buddy’s best friend, and that shrew he lived with now who day by day sucked more of Buddy’s life-energy from his soul.
Buddy now stood on the rocky beach, feeling the cool night air come in off the lake. The moon was in the ice-clear sky, creeping back down from Tuesday’s full moon. Buddy had spent Tuesday night here on the beach staring down that devil moon in much the same state as he was this fine evening.
Smitty had taken his keys, so Buddy had decided to walk down to the beach. He stopped in the parking lot to take the spare bottle of Jim Beam from the back of his ancient pickup truck. Jim was always a good friend to have along with you when you took drunken walks on the beach at one-thirty in the morning.
It was a quarter to two when Buddy found that his good friend Jim had up and left him. He took up a pitcher’s stance and threw the empty bottle into the air. He had been three-time All-County pitcher back in the adolescent days of locker rooms smelling of sweat and back seats smelling of cheerleaders smelling of Buddy. His picture still graced the trophy case of Harkness High School. Made it all the way to the state finals back in ’28, only to be soundly defeated by Marquette. Steroid-pushing fucking queers. What a bunch of assholes. Twenty-two years, five jobs, two wives, and three brats later, Buddy found that he still had that glorious pitching arm.
The bottle flew up into the night air and for a brief moment it was a silhouette over the face of the moon. He heard the bottle splash in the lake, a hollow, dead sound that always raised the gooseflesh of his forearms.
Looking out onto the lake, Buddy saw the blinking lights of a boat. It was much too big to be one of Harkness’s fishermen pulling a late night. This vessel was a monster, and the spotlights emanating from the deck, sweeping out across the lake, revealed the massive deck-mounted artillery. It was definitely one of the Containment Line.
Something caught his eye: a shooting star.
A smile lit Buddy’s face. The arc of light across the black sky flew across the face of the moon.
Buddy’s smile faltered. Shooting stars are not triangular.
A visceral and sensual flood of memory engulfed Buddy as he remembered high school geometry class, Miss Banks interrogating young rough Buddy on the difference between an isosceles and an equilateral triangle.
I don’t know.
But you’ll have to know for the test, Buddy.
Who cares? When will I ever need to know about triangles out on the fucking docks? When will I ever need any of this?
He blinked and Miss Banks, the unfortunate mixture of teacher, disciplinarian, and creator of countless pubescent schoolboy mid-class erections was gone, replaced by a burning light in the sky, painful to look at directly.
He followed the path of the shooting star. Didn’t meteors usually blink out after a second or two? This one looked like—
It was going to hit the lake.
Buddy staggered and fell backwards as the sky became fire and a sickening heat. It was going to hit the boat, he was sure of it.
Buddy screamed at the impact.
A massive plume of water erupted from the lake.
The lights on the boat began to furiously bob up and down. The v
essel struggled to maintain horizontal, and it scarcely avoided rolling over completely. Good lord, Buddy thought. Think of the wave that’ll make.
Seconds later, Buddy was encompassed in the twenty-foot wall of water that washed the beach. The shockwave and concussion knocked him against the ground, and cold bitter water flooded his open mouth and stole his breath. Flailed around like a rag, Buddy was pulled back into the lake as the water receded. He fought to right himself, his lungs on fire and his world becoming sheer frigid black.
Buddy McClure’s neck was broken against the rocks in an inaudible snap as he joined his old friend Jim Beam on the lakebed.
“Report!”
“Horizontal maintained, stress breaches belowdecks. We have men in the water.”
“What in the name of Sweet Mother Mary was that?”
“We don’t know, sir. Complete radar failure, and we’re running on reserve power. We’re trying to contact—”
“We’re taking on too much water. We can’t—”
“Get Fleet on the com. Someone has to find out what the hell that was, and we’re going to be a little too busy saving our own asses in a few minutes to give a rat’s ass. Call in the nearest Line vessel.”
“Fleet is sending the Indomitable, sir.”
“They’re twenty fucking miles away! Tell Fleet to lock in the line and we’ll launch our lifecraft. The Indomitable better haul ass.”
“Yes, sir.”
a white place, out of time.
the judas persevered.
waging a war out of time and space, they chased the enemy, dying to prevent the damnable purpose.
within the white place, a distress signal was found.
[commander? a beacon from judas gethsemane magdalene. priority channel.]
“What’s she say?”
[enemy sighted and tracked on direct alpha purpose transit. the purpose nears completion.]
“Harvest?”
hatred. knowledge of past failures.
[they’re apparently ready to synthesize the upload generators.]
contemplation. realization.
“Open channel to Judas Simon.”
[done.]
((hannah?))
“Simon, we’ve identified and tracked Enemy vessels on a direct-Alpha run. Is your fleet prepared for combat?”
((we’re at 90%, but no one’s been able to find maggie—))
“She’s already there. We sent her on a recon run in Fourteen-seven. She found a nest, and they’re ready to complete their mission.”
((fourteen-seven? that’s five thousand years earlier than we—))
“Take your fleet and intercept the Enemy before they can make it to the Alpha Point. Find them in transit and destroy them. It will buy us a little more time to gather our other forces for the final assault.”
((and magdalene?))
Indeed. And Magdalene..?
“She’s been wounded. Her beacon was very weak. It wouldn’t be a good idea to—”
((wounded? how seriously is she hurt? can she make it back?))
“Simon, we don’t have time for this.”
((i’ll make the time for it, hannah.))
“Fine. Go get her, but be careful. We don’t know how many Enemy that When holds.”
((yes, commander.))
“Then it’s set. Engage Shadow drives.”
Within the white place, she watched as Simon’s forces faded from existence.
So Magdalene is still alive... That will have to be remedied.
“And there she goes.”
The ASCL Freeman Teller drifted with increasing speed beneath the surface of the lake. The lifecraft stood by and watched as their mothership went vertical and slid into the depths. Spotlights swept the area, and the small vessels surveyed the dark waters for overboard seamen.
“How many?”
“Still over thirty men unaccounted for, sir. Tracking chips aren’t responding.”
“Keep looking. How far away is the Indomitable?”
“Closing quickly. That’s her to the northeast.”
Across the expanse of the lake, they observed a fast-approaching vessel. It was the same model as the Teller, one of the Containment Line. The Indomitable cruised quickly and quietly up to the impact zone, and flooded the area with light. The deck guns swept back and forth in readiness.
The Indomitable would find and destroy whatever had sunk the Teller.
Harkness. 2:30 A.M.
The eight dark figures that emerged from the lake surfaced half a mile down the beach from where Buddy McClure’s broken body lay. They were cold, wet, exhausted, and confused, now trapped on a world that was thousands of years younger than the worlds they had known.
In silence, they faced the lake as Reynald activated a small control panel on his forearm. A bright flash came from within the lake as a miniature quantum singularity engulfed the lifeboat.
At first, it appeared that nothing had happened. The vessel that had come to the aid of the sunken ship was still visible out there, but then, for an impossible instant, the very surface of the lake seemed to bulge outward and contract back in. With an ear-splitting roar, the explosion rose to the surface, incinerating the Indomitable and the lifecraft of the Freeman Teller almost immediately. There was little debris, and even that was quickly pulled under. The surface of the lake returned to its original placid state.
The men turned from the lake and began to walk.
“We’ll scan for Magdalene.” Reynald did not sound hopeful. “I saw her come down behind us. She can’t be that far away.”
“Do you think anyone saw us come down?”
“I don’t know, but someone is bound to be suspicious when that boat doesn’t report in. Let’s get as far away as possible.”
They slid into the night.
“Has the Containment Line reported anything?”
“Nothing, sir. We have five vessels closing on the site.”
“How could something have slipped through the Line?”
“Mr. President, we haven’t ruled out a mechanical failure. It could just be —”
Jennings slammed his fist to the table, covered with satellite reports and faxes. “Two of our ships are gone, Cervera. That’s over three hundred of our sailors. This isn’t an accident. Someone is attacking us.”
“But—”
“No buts. I want that area secured. Tell the Harkness Chickenshit Rescue Squad to pull back from the site. Have the Line close in. I want the whole damned county sealed off. No one gets into or out of Harkness, Michigan. That site has to be secure.”
“Mr. President—”
“Cervera, would you like me to relieve you of duty? God knows I’ve wanted to for years. Don’t give me a reason to now, Tony, when I need your cooperation the most. Someone’s trying to start a goddamned war out there. Secure the area.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jennings stood in front of the globe projection.
“This is getting too damned out of hand.”
Cervera glared coldly at the president.
“Yes. Sir.”
Magdalene:
She felt the Shadow tech sweep over her, and despaired as she calculated the distance to Reynald. The last survivors of her crew had crashed half a world away.
She activated a homing beacon.
A silent alarm. A dull thudding pain. Waning energy.
Magdalene retreated to the black of sleep.
Reynald sighed.
The homing beacon was so far away, so faint. It was also emitting an erratic pulse, quiet and full of static. Magdalene had been badly damaged in her landing, apparently.
“Maggie’s on the other side of the planet. We’ll have to find a way to get to her, and quickly. She’s fading fast.”
He watched hope drop from the faces of his troops.
“We have to get off this rock before it’s too late.”
the black: a heap of shattered images
RUSE INITIATED. THE PREY IS ANTICIPATED.<
br />
a smile from a mouth without substance
THE ANNOYANCE WILL BE DESTROYED.
THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.
THE JUDAS ENSUE((?))
THEY FALL TO THEIR END. THEY FALL TO THE BLACK.
pleasure. hope of pain
HARVEST WILL FOLLOW RUSE. UPLOAD WILL ENHANCE THE PATTERN.
SOON THE PATTERN WILL BE COMPLETE. THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.
COMPLETION IS THE PURPOSE.
the black closes.
Harkness. 3:30 A.M.
The dance was winding down. Billy Joe and the Lone Stars were packing up, and the only music left was being piped from an ancient Wurlitzer jukebox: country and western. A few couples still slow-danced out on the floor to a decrepit Kenny Rogers ballad.
Ray Shore went from table to table picking up the beer bottles and emptying the ashtrays into a wastebasket, as his father and his father’s father had done before him. He hummed along to the song, as his father and his father’s father had done before him. Kenny Rogers was truly timeless.
He heard the main door open, but he paid no attention to it. Just another couple going off to do whatever drunk couples do on Saturday nights.
He felt a shadow fall over him.
A large man faced him. He was very tall, dressed in a tight black material that revealed the outline of hard muscle and a black overcoat that draped to the floor.
He had the most striking gray eyes Ray had ever seen.
Ray’s heart thudded in his throat as he stared into those eyes.
“Help you, mister?”
The couples on the dance floor had taken notice of the man in black. Their movements faltered, stopped. Kenny Rogers persisted on the jukebox, but no one was listening anymore.
The man spoke. “I need directions to the nearest…” He considered. “Airport.”
Ray let a smile play across his face. “You joking, mister?”
The man looked at him silently.
The main door opened again. Two more men came in, dressed in the same black uniform as the first. One was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, about the age of Ray’s son, who would someday take over the bar. The other was middle-aged, bald, scarred. There was an odd tattoo on his left temple. It looked to Ray like the marking on the bottom of cereal boxes. A bar code.
